Arena Football League must play now or never
John Hondo Hahn
Saturday December 13, 2008
Looking back at the United States Football League (1983-85), a professional outdoor football confederation, which decided after three seasons of spring games, sought to play, up against the NFL, in the fall (1986). Under advisement from its board of directors (owners), the league thought if fall isn’t possible to take the 1986 season off and reorganize. It never restructured itself after getting away from its original business model and collapsed.
The AFL, entering its 23rd season in 2009, is headed in that direction if a number of the league’s owners decide to “take the (2009) season off.” Is this destructive to the entire organization? Absolutely. Could the AFL recover following a season without the nets, sideboards, loud music, but more importantly the players, coaches and front office personnel? Not at all claim some who saw the demise of the USFL, the XFL and other leagues, seeking to be NFL wantabees
Set aside that moment. The AFL does not want to be the NFL, never has, never will. But wait there’s more. Many in the AFL’s league office (specifically in New York) did want to be like the NFL. That’s the point. Spending lavishly at the top has gotten the AFL into the mess it is in at the present time.
Lines of credit, established by former commissioner C. David Baker, have come to fruition of payment. The AFL office has bled, to the tune of $450,000 (negative) in each of the last 12 months. Now its time to pay up for the last of those chits and some of the owners don’t want to take responsibility for the “green” gaff. They want to “take the season off” to restructure. But will it really save the league – that has survived recession and a slow economy in the past – or will it take its toll on others (teams) who want to play? Absolutely.
When a league goes dark, it never recovers. If those owners who think their franchises will be worth something after a “layoff,” can forget it. Their clubs are way over inflated as it is and they won’t be worth anything if the AFL doesn’t play in 2009.
Think you know how it all went down in the turmoil and frustration of last week’s vote that supposedly insured the AFL would play this coming March? Here is the real story on the vote, the follow up and the reasoning behind all this madness the fans, players, coaches and administrations find perplexing.
The vote to play, or not to play, was blocked by seven votes. In other words, it took those teams NOT wanting to play 2/3rds majority to stop the teams who wanted to play, according to the AFL by laws. Those wanting to play were: the Arizona Rattlers, the Chicago Rush, the Orlando Predators, the San Jose SaberCats, the Tampa Bay Storm, the New York Dragons and Gridiron, which owns the rights to the patented net-field system as used in the AFL and af2 league.
Interestingly, the Chicago Rush owned by Alan M. Levin, Peter Levin, Arthur Price and Mike Ditka (Chicago Football LLC), changed their vote NOT to play the next day. That did not alter the fact of the 2/3rd majority situation. Contrary to what was believed before, the Grand Rapids Rampage, owned by Dan DeVos, did not vote to play.
Obviously, the remainder of the teams, the Colorado Crush, the Columbus Destroyers, the Cleveland Gladiators, the Dallas Desperados, the Georgia Force, the Kansas City Brigade, the Los Angeles Avengers, the Philadelphia Soul and the Utah Blaze elected to vote AGAINST playing in 2009.
Why do these teams not want to play? First, they don’t want to face the on-coming debt and would like to restructure the league in such a way as to save money. Secondly, some of these teams want to save face, wait out a year and then sell them. There are three who just want to bail out of the league. Unlike the New Orleans VooDoo, and its owner Tom Benson (New Orleans Saints), who just pulled the plug several weeks ago and escaped all the chaos, there are three other NFL owned teams Colorado (part owner Pat Bowlen, Denver Broncos), Dallas (Jerry Jones, Dallas Cowboys) and Georgia (Arthur Blank, Atlanta Falcons) who to a great extent want to fold.
Another question arises: Will those owners, who want to take 2009 off, honor the contracts of the existing coaches? One owner, in particular, already has told his coach and staff they “will not receive payment” despite having binding contracts. This could get sticky and could culminate into some damaging lawsuits for both litigants in the cases.
Despite the AFL Players Association, already voting to consider pay reductions and other concessions, convincing most of the 10 NO votes has caused a lot of licentious acts of deceit and falsehoods concerning what is going on in conference calls and the board room. For example, some of the ‘NO’ voters intimidated interim commissioner Edward R. Policy into sending out a text message (without a vote on it) saying the league was near folding to members of AFLPA. Specifically, the message was received by the AFLPA executive board that includes Soul wide receiver Chris Jackson, who then sent it to members around the league, causing an emotional outcry by all in the AFLPA.
At that time, the AFLPA, had to squelch the message as a “bad rumor” and get the members to understand that the league was NOT folding. He advised them that this was ongoing and they should not panic.
Meanwhile, the AFL has scheduled another meeting for late Sunday to continue discussion on other business in regards to who is playing next season and who is not. Hopefully, the “want to play teams” will also be given the courtesy to introduce their new business ideas and plan to the entire board.
The current economy is only a small portion of what this occurrence is causing. For the most part, it is a group of team owners who want to see the AFL continue on its merits, restructure as they go and believe in keeping jobs intact for the purposes of helping the economy, not hindering it.
Ask yourself about the full-time and part-time employees of the arenas in AFL cities. What happens to eight dates those AFL teams command for the season? What happens to the restaurants, the parking, the gasoline consumption and other expenses associated with fans coming to the games?
Yes, the AFL is a small part of that economic trickle down effect. What if there were no games at all for a year? How do you think all those involved would feel without that paycheck?
Believe me, it will pay to play, not just now, but in the future. The future is now or never!
